King 2341 questions (old style w/detachable bell)

[jon112780]

I've played one of these 3 bangers rather recently; the more valves down, the stuffier it got. I mean REALLY stuffy. C (13) under the staff and B (123) sounded like a puny foghorn, both 'da' or 'ta' attacks sounded pretty weak. Under those, the low F and E both sounded like a breath attack, no matter what 'da' or 'ta' I gave it.

There were the usual dents from it being 40 plus years old, wasn't anything stuck down the bell, I couldn't tell if the valves were aligned, the valves seemed pretty tight, and no leakes were noticed when I went over the horn.

Is this progressive stuffiness normal for this model? I noticed they sometimes have four valves; would this be strictly for intonation, or is there a decent low end on some of these? Would a shallow 'LM-10 like' mouthpiece make any difference? I was using a Conn Helleberg at the time.

My usual horn is a Besson 983 which others have told me that for a compensating horn, the low register is pretty open (especially after I aligned the valves), I agree. The low E on my 983 Eb was much more open than on the old style 2341 BBb...

Whadda y'all think?

[WilliamVance]

I played a very dented one of these for two years or more in a community band and thought it to be a good horn. There has to be a leak or something stuffing it up. The new 2341's didn't seem to play much better and I felt I got more volume out of the old version than when I owned a new one.

[Sam Gnagey]

sounds like a valve allignment problem. Maybe you need new felts under the finger buttons.

[Sam Gnagey]

sounds like a valve allignment problem. Maybe you need new felts under the finger buttons.

[Sam Gnagey]

sounds like a valve allignment problem. Maybe you need new felts under the finger buttons.

[Sam Gnagey]

sounds like a valve allignment problem. Maybe you need new felts under the finger buttons.

[Sam Gnagey]

It looks like Sam is pretty confident

Just couldn't stop hittin' that button!